¹ Page, D. L., JHS 93 (1973), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² I recognise that the ‘pre-history’ of a legend may be a problematic term and concept. Consideration of the related idea of the ‘Urfabel’ as discussed in the ‘Biographisches Nachwort’ (by Franz Jung) toMeuli's, K.Gesammelte Schriften (Basel/Stuttgart, 1975), ii. l 198ffGoogle Scholar. may clarify matters. Further (comparative) light may be cast by the remarks ofBarnes, D. R., Speculum 45 (1970), 417ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. esp. 432 on the difficulty of extrapolating the basic folk-tale structure from a poem such as Beowulf (cf. below n. 39). As he observes, ‘no-one would deny that the poem bears obvious traces of conscious literary artistry’, and the same is certainly true of Stesichorus' Geryoneis, in particular the unexpectedly noble characterisation of Geryon himself. But as I hope to show, it is still possible to detect, beneath the surface of the artistic structure imposed by the poet, original folk-tale patterns, and below these in turn a still more primitive layer in which, for instance, Geryon's equivalence to a death-demon (see below n. 16) can be discerned.

³ ByRohde, E. in Ada Societalis Philol. Lipsiae I. 1 (1871), pp. 25ffGoogle Scholar. It is attributed to the Geryoneis on p. 29. Keller's text appeared in 1877. See nowGiannini, A., Paradoxographorum Graecorum Reliquiae (Milan, 1966), p. 340Google Scholar.

⁴ Euripides Herakles ² (1895), 1, p. 23 n. 45 (‘Stesichoros, natürlich in der Geryoneis’).

⁵ E.g. Friedländer, P., Herakles (Berlin, 1907), p. 37 n. 1Google Scholar, Kunze, E., Olympische Forschungen 2 [(Archaische Schildbdnder) Berlin, 1950], p. 109 n. 1Google Scholar.

⁶ Rh. Mus. 116 (1973), 100 n. 14Google Scholar.

⁷ See, for instance, Burkert, W., Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Los Angeles, 1979), pp. 185f. n. 13Google Scholar, West, M. L., JHS 99 (1979), 145 n. 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Brize, P., Die Geryoneis des Stesichoros und die fruühe griechische Kunst (Beitr. zur Archdol. 12 [1980]), pp. 66f. and pp. 121f.Google Scholar, Glynn, R., AJA 85 (1981), 122 n. 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Burkert, sup. cit. [n. 7], p. 84. The reference is to the famous study first published in Russian (in 1928) and translated into English as Morphology of the Folk Tale (second, revised, edition, University of Texas Press, 1968; I cite by the page numbers of this). It would be more accurate, from the point of view both of Propp's study and Nereus' rôle, to define the latter as a ‘donor’ or ‘provider’ (see in particular Propp, pp. 39ff., 79ff.), constituting the subcategory of ‘antagonistic donor’. ‘Helpers’ as generally understood in the world of folk-lore and in Propp's study in particular, and as exemplified by (inter al.) Jason's Argonauts, are significantly absent from Heracles' quest after the cattle of Geryon and, indeed, most of his labours. SeeMeuli, K., Hermes 70 (1935), 170Google Scholar= Ges. Schr. ii.871 n. 1, and cf. Propp, pp. 82f. on such absence of helpers.

⁹ ‘Stesichorus did not name any intermediary’ claims Matthews, V. J.ad loc. (Panyassis of Halikarnassos – Text and Commentary (Mnemos. Suppl. 33 (1974)), 58)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ For this interpretation of the Hesperides story see, for instance, Wilamowitz (sup. cit. [n. 4]), p. 56,Schweitzer, B., Herakles (Tübingen, 1922), p. 134 n. 1Google Scholar, Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), p. 178 n. 9, and (in particular)Brazda, M. K., Zur Bedeutung des Apfels in der antiken Kultur (Bonn Diss., 1977), pp. 89ffGoogle Scholar. On the Cerberus labour see Schweitzer as cited.

¹¹ Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), pp. 152ff. followed by, for instance, Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 8]), pp. 168f. = pp. 870f.

¹² For a good bibliography (up to 1920) of studies that recognise this link see Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), p. 87 n. 4. Little of value has been added since (cf. Burkert, sup. cit. [n. 7], p. 179 n. 2). Burkert's own discussion (pp. 83ff.) provides a useful synthesis, with due reference to the ‘shamanistic’ associations of Heracles' journey to the Otherworld, which were already stressed by Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 11]).

¹³ By far the most helpful and comprehensive treatment of these related combats is to be found inFontenrose's, J.Python (Los Angeles, 1959), Ch. 12Google Scholar. This deals with Heracles and Thanatos (pp. 323ff.), Heracles' worsting of Hades at Pylos (pp. 327ff.), his wrestling bout with Antaeus (and Busiris) (pp. 330ff.), his encounters with Geryon and Cacus (pp. 334ff.), with Laomedon (pp. 347ff.), and with Achelous and Nessus (pp. 350ff.). Note also Heracles' battle with the twin sons of Actor (cf. Schweitzer, sup. cit. [n. 10], p. 121; ‘Geryoneus und die Aktorione waren… als Geschöpfe und Vasallen des Unterweltsfürsten zum mindestens zur Hālfte ihres Wesens grausige Unterweltsdamonen’), and with the many-headed Hydra (cf. Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), pp. 133ff., and Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), pp. 80ff.). On the question of Heracles' contest with Cacus see further below p. 287.

¹⁴ See Lesky, A., Alkestis, der Mythus und das Drama (Akad. d. Wiss. in Wien, phil.-hist. Kl. 203. 2 (1925)), pp. 60ff.Google Scholar; cf.Radermacher, L., Das Jenseits im Mythos der Hellenen (Bonn, 1903), p. 42Google Scholar, Kroll, J., Gott und Holle (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 20 (1932)Google Scholar; repr. Darmstadt, 1963), pp. 373ff.

¹⁵ See Brommer, F., Herakles II: die unkanonischen Taten des Helden (Darmstadt, 1984), p. 79Google Scholar; cf. Radermacher (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 145ff., Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 375. B. E. Richardson, Old Age among the Ancient Greeks (Johns Hopkins, 1933; repr. 1969), pp. 72ff. has some interesting comments. Particularly relevant from our point of view are the similarities observed in the depiction of this topic and the related themes of Heracles' encounter with the Old Man of the Sea, Hades etc.

¹⁶ Note in particular that ‘Cerun’ ( = Geryon) appears beside Hades and Persephone in the Tomba dell' Oreo at Corneto from the second half of the fourth century B.c. (D 25 in Brize's forthcoming LIMC article s.v. ‘Geryon’ [vol. IV]): cf. Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace Odes 2.14.8. See, in general,Croon, J. H., The Herdsman of the Dead (Utrecht, 1952), pp. 27f. and 67ff.Google Scholar, Fontenrose (sup. cit. [n. 13]), pp. 334ff. Aeneas beholds Geryon in his visit to the Underworld ( Vergil, , Aen. 6. 289)Google Scholar. Further, Hes. Th. 294 locates Geryon cταθμῶι ἐν ήερόεντι. The epithet is strange (‘because outside the world of man’ is West's (unconvincing) explanation ad loc.) but Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 390f. and p. 391 nn. 1–3 observes how often in antiquity the Underworld is associated with darkness (see further Kroll, Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Finsternis, Unterwelt als Statte der’). The name Ιηρύων means ‘roarer’, and O. Gruppe variously suggested that it was to be connected with Geryon's status as a chthonic deity whose power is manifested in the earthquake ( Gr. Myth. I (Munich, 1906), p. 459 n. IGoogle Scholar) or in his relationship to his bellowing herds (RE Supplbd. s.v. ‘Herakles’ (3 (1903)), 1066.48ff.). Cerberus and other hounds of hell are traditionally pictured as loudly barking (see West onHes, . Th. 311)Google Scholar. Note also Pind. fr. 143.2f. Sn: βαρυβόαν ∣ πορθμὸν πεϕευγότει Ἀχέροντοc

¹⁷ So, for instance, Gruppe, O., Gr. Myth. 2 (Munich, 1906), p. 1327Google Scholar, Weicker, , RE s.v. Geryoneus (7 ¹ (1912)), 1290.2ff.Google Scholar, Croon (sup. cit. [n. 16]), p. 67. Very important in this context is the observation made by Kxoll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 375 n. 4: ‘Für eine Reihe von Ausprägungen der alten Todesmacht, die zu blossen Sagenfiguren degradiert worden sind, ist der Besitz von Rinder – oder Pferdeherden – das sind ursprünglich die Toten – charakteristisch, z.B. für Oinomaos, Neleus, Admetos, Laomedon; der Ἂιδηc κλυτόπωλο'. It is striking that in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh (as was pointed out by A. D. Nock in his review ofKroll's, Gott und Hölle (AJP 55 (1934), 182 n. 1)Google Scholar) the cattle god Shakkan/Sumuqan is pictured as being in the Underworld, together with the Queen of the Underworld and the deity who keeps the book of Death (cf.Pritchard, J. B. (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament ³ (Princeton, 1969) (iv) p. 87 line 49 (tr. E. A. Speiser))Google Scholar. Since (as Dr S. Dalley warns me) others whose presence is hard to explain are also pictured there (especially Etana, the king of Kish) we should proceed with caution, bearing in mind that Shakkan's presence may be explicable in terms of a once well-known and very specific story. Cf. Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature K. 1784.2 for an Irish tale of huge oxen guarded by a giant on an Otherworld island.

¹⁸ Cf. Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17]), E 481.2.0.1 (‘Island of the Dead’), F 129.4.4 (‘Voyage to Isle of the Dead’), F 134 (‘Otherworld on Island’) etc. Britain was plausibly regarded as an Island of the Dead by the Byzantine historian Procopius (Gothic Wars 4.20). On the related question of the Islands of the Blest and their situation beyond the sea see, e.g.,Nilsson, , Minoan-Mycenaean Religion ² (Lund, 1950), pp. 622ff.Google Scholar, Griffiths, J. Gwyn, Greece & Rome 16 (1947), 122ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (both arguing for Egyptian influence).

¹⁹ For Hades and the Underworld as located in the West see, for instance,Gruppe, O., RE Supplbd. Herakles, s.v. (3(1903)), 1065.14ff.Google Scholar, Croon (sup. cit. [n. 17]), p. 57, Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Westen als Totenland’ (p. 555), Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17]) E 481.6.2 (‘land of dead in west’); cf.West, M. L., Hesiod Theogony (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar, General Index s.v. ‘underworld… not clearly distinct from world's edge’ andPinney, and Ridgway, , JHS 101 (1981), 141ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. on a lecythos by the Sappho Painter showing Heracles at the ends of the Earth and the mouth of the Underworld.

²⁰ Mentioned in S 17 of our poem. In the Jenseitsfahrt represented by the expedition of the Argonauts (see below n. 27), the Sun plays a very important role. The goal of the expedition is his island in the East (cf.Lesky, , WS 63 (1948), 22ffGoogle Scholar. = Ges. Schr. pp. 26ff.), Aietes is his son, the Argo itself takes its name from a word meaning ‘bright’, and so forth (cf.Philippson, P., Thessalische Mythologie (Zurich, 1944), p. 179)Google Scholar. For a like connection between the Sun and death in other cultures it is sufficient to quote Egyptian analogues (the idea that the Sun sinks daily into the Underworld): cf. Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 184ff., and Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Re Fahrt ins Totenreich’,West, M. L., Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971), pp. 46f., etc.Google Scholar) and Babylonian notions (an annual descent of the Sun into the Underworld: see Kroll, pp. 205ff., West, General Index s.v. ‘Sun… as goal of the dead’) etc. For Egyptian links between Heracles and the Sun cf. Plut. de Is. et Os. 41 (moralia 367d) andGriffiths, J. Gwynad loc. (p. 457)Google Scholar. See more generally Kroll, Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Descensus Motive… Licht’. Note finally Propp's cautious suggestion (sup. cit. [n. 8]), p. 107 (cf. p. 116 n. 5)) that the frequency of magical means of travel in folk-tale quests, especially magical boats, ‘reflects notions about the wandering of souls in the other world’.

²¹ Red because so coloured by the rays of the setting sun. But red is claimed as a colour associated with Paradise, byDieterich, A., Nekyia (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 25f.Google Scholar, Radermacher (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 42f, Gruppe (sup. cit. [n. 19]), 1066.12ff. The passages they cite seem to me inadequate as proof. Note, however, Pind. Thren. 7.3 ( = fr. 129 Sn.): ϕοινικορόδοιc δ' ἐνὶ λειμώνεccι προάcτιον αὐτῶν (cf.Thesleff, H. in Gnomosyne (Festschrift, W. Marg [Munich, 1981]), pp. 35f)Google Scholar. Red as an Otherworld colour is noted as a motif in Irish legend by Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17]), F 178.1.

²² So, e.g., Croon (sup. cit. [n. 17]), p. 58. See in general Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17]), E 481.2 (‘land of dead across water’), F 93 (‘water entrance to lower world’) etc. Also Radermacher (sup. cit. n. 14), pp. 72ff., and Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Meer als Unterwelt’. Cf. Plutona… qui ter amplum ∣ Geryonen Tityonque tristi ∣ compescit undo at Hor. Odes 2.14.7ff. with Nisbet and Hubbard's note ad loc; Meuli (as cited in n. 29 below) p. 16 = p. 604 on the significance of the crossing of water in the Argonauts' Jenseitsfahrt; and the comparative material assembled to illustrate the idea of a barrier of water between living and dead byTerpening, R. H., Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (London, 1985), pp. 15fGoogle Scholar. (cf. J. Kühn in Enzyklopädie des Märchens s.v. Fährmann (4.785ff.)).

²³ See in particular the work of Croon cited in n. 16 above. There is some evidence that Geryon himself was (originally?) conceived of as pasturing his own cattle: see Croon, p. 32 n. 17). Cf. also (among earlier studies) Dieterich (sup. cit. [n. 21]), p. 25 n. 1. Note that at Apollod. 2.5.12 Heracles is described as wrestling (while in Hades to fetch back Cerberus) with the tender of Hades' cattle, Menoetes, who is said to be the son of Keuthonymos (rightly described by Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 374 n. 4as ‘ein sprechender “Hades” – Name’). We cannot fail to recall how in Stesichorus' Geryoneis the herdsman Eurytion is said to have been born ἐν κευθμῶνι πέτραc (S7). Cf. Eur. Hec. 1f. ἣκω νεκρῶν κευθμῶνα καὶ cκότου πύλαc ∣ λιπών, ἲν' Ἂιδηc χωρὶc ὢικιcται θεῶν, and Kroll, Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Höhle… Unterwelt als’. It now seems likely that Apollodorus' detail of Menoetes observing and reporting back to Geryon the death of his herdsman (2.5.10) derives from Stesichorus (cf. Page (sup. cit. [n. 1], p. 145).

²⁴ Orthus' status as doublet of Cerberus is particularly stressed by Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), pp. 87f. They are both the offspring of the Echidna (Hes. Th. 309), and Apollod. 2.5.10 and Servius on Aen. 7.662 give Orthus two heads, a feature shared with Cerberus (according to some sources: see West on Hes. Th. 312,Pinney, and Ridgway, , JHS 101 (1981), 143)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a general study of the motif of the ‘hound of hell’ (cf. Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17], A 673) seeMainoldi, C., ‘Cani mitici e rituali tra il regno dei morti e il mondo dei viventi’, QUCC 8 (1981), 7ff.Google Scholar,Hultkrantz, A., The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition (Stockholm, 1957), p. 80 and nn. 59–60Google Scholar.

²⁵ Sup. cit (n. 10), pp. 132ff. esp. pp. 135ff. One argument invoked is the Oriental influence visible in the labours involving the Hesperides and Cerberus (e.g. the links between the garden of the Hesperides and the Paradisiacal garden of the Gilgamesh epic). On this see further Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 11], p. 168 = p. 870 n. 3, Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), pp. 80ff.

²⁶ No mention of the considerations raised by Schweitzer in, for instance,Brommer's, Herakles, die zwölf Taten des Helden in antiker Kunst und Literatur ² (Cologne, 1979) = Heracles, The Twelve Labors of the Hero in Ancient Art and Literature (1986)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Note, in particular, Apollodorus 2.5.11: τελεcθέντων δὲ τῶν ἂθλων ἐν μηνί καὶ ἒτεcιν ὀκτώ, μὴ προcδεξάμενοc Εὐρυcθεὺc τόν τε τῶν τοῦ Αὐγέου βοcκημάτων καὶ τὸν τῆc Ὓδραc ἑνδέκατον ἐπέταξεν ἆθλον παρ' Ἑcπερίδων χρύcεα μῆλα κομίζειν The labours involving Augeas' stables and the hydra, together with that involving Geryon's cattle, are argued to be the oldest of all by Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), p. 146. It seems further to be the case that the Cerberus labour itself eventually failed to register as an actual triumph over death, and came to be regarded as a mere daring adventure to bring back a savage brute of a dog, and that the Hesperides labour was regarded as the final conquest of death: see Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 375f. and n. 5, p. 428 and n. 1.

²⁸ For the linking of the various labours of Heracles with Eurystheus as relatively recent see Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), p. 175. One naturally expects the individual exploits to have existed independently and even in isolation for some time before they were artificially strung together and associated with Eurystheus as their inspirer. Eurystheus is directly connected with the Cerberus labour by virtue of the comic sequel involving his cowering in a jar, which is itself a duplicate of his reaction to the Erymanthian boar (cf. Brommer, sup. cit. [n. 26], pp. 44f. ς p. 46).

²⁹ Odyssee und Argonautika (Berlin, 1921), pp. 15ffGoogle Scholar. = Ges. Schr. 2.604ff. (for further references see Index I of Ges. Schr. s.v. ‘Jenseitsfahrt’). For more recent interpretations of the story of the Argonauts along these lines see e.g. Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 35 n. 3 (Jason's encounter with the dragon symbolises his victory over death: see further Kroll's Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Drache’);de Vries, J., Betrachtungen zum Märchen (Helsinki, 1954), pp. 96fGoogle Scholar. andCoomaraswamy, A. K., in Studies and Essays in Honor of G. Sarton (New York, 1944), pp. 465ffGoogle Scholar. on the Symplegades as symbolising the gates to the Underworld; cf. Fontenrose (sup. cit. [n. 13]), pp. 478ff., who points out that ‘every steersman, lookout, builder, seer, and guide of the Argo, proves to have manifold connections with demonic powers of sea, land, and underworld. It is likely that every one is a form of the boatman of the dead Charon’ (p. 485). Some suggestive remarks on the symbolism of ships and the dead inRahner, H., Gr. Mythen in Christlicher Deutung (Zurich, 1957), pp. 292ffGoogle Scholar. See also the material on the boatman of the dead quoted above n. 22. The Argonauts encounter the Sirens for whose associations with the Underworld seePage, , Folktales in Homer's Odyssey (Harvard, 1973), pp. 86ff., 126ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the ‘shamanistic’ associations of Orpheus both in this episode and as an Argonaut more generally seeSchwartz, E.ap. HSCP 89 (1985), 241fGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Sup. cit. [n. 29], pp. 101ff. = pp. 664ff. Further parallels for this folk-tale motif of asking the way preliminary to a miraculous journey (especially to the Otherworld) are cited in Radermacher's note on Arist. Ran. 38–165 (itself an adaptation of the device). Comparable (though not identical) is the case of a figure who helps and advises at the start of a katabasis (e.g. the Sibyl of Cumae: cf.Lloyd-Jones, , Maia 19 (1967), 224f.)Google Scholar.

³¹ If so, the motif has been disguised by the superimposing of Chiron's role as the ‘helper’ (see, e.g.,Lesky, , RE s.v. Peleus (19 (1938)), 286.42ff., 289.40ff.)Google Scholar.

³² It is suggestive, for instance, that apart from being shown the way by the Graeae, Perseus receives from them the cap of Hades. The Graeae are daughters of Phorcys, another Old Ma n of the Sea (see West on Hes. Th. 237), which further confirms the comparison here drawn, and the Gorgons of course, like the Hesperides, Geryon et al., live in the far West (Hes. Th. 275f. etc.).

³³ See e.g. Radt, , Tr.G.F. 3 (Aeschylus), pp. 359ff.Google Scholar, 4 (Sophocles) pp. 484ff.

³⁴ Meuli observes that a frequent motif within German folktales of heroes who start out on a quest, is that they encounter at some early stage a demon who attacks their comrades and contaminates their food. The hero himself gets the better of the creature and forces from him information concerning the route of the quest (sup.cit. [n. 10], p. 102 = p. 664). This is all very suggestive for the original form of the Phineus episode – as is the rôle played by the Harpies inVergil, , Aen. 3.209ff.Google Scholar, where, though eluding the attack of Aeneas an d his men, they deliver a malicious prophecy about Aeneas' journey. There is a potentially close parallel in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf for the alleged phenomenon represented by Phineus – a kindly helper displaying vestiges of a more hostile attitude: see the article by T. A. Shippey cited below (n. 39), p. 8.

³⁵ Sup. cit. (n. 7), pp. 185f. n. 13 (‘Heracles forced “Nereus ” to lead the way to the Hesperides: Pherecydes… following Stesichorus’). The same interpretation is advanced (more tentatively, explicitly, and long-windedly) byBrillante, C., QUCC 12 (1982), 17ffGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ The reference to the Hesperides in S 8.3 is not to be connected with the quest for their apples (see, e.g., Page, sup. cit. [n. 1], p. 148). We do not know the name of every poem Stesichorus composed (as the Lille Papyrus has recently reminded us) but it seems unnecessarily perverse to invoke the existence of an otherwise unknown work merely to house the present fragment, especially when this seems to offer us a motif (‘das Vorabenteuer mit dem wissenden Dämon’ in Meuli's words) so at home in the context of the Jenseitsfahrt that the Geryoneis has independently been taken to reflect. The notion that Nereus might have appeared in any other known poem of Stesichorus is laboriously excluded by Brize (sup. cit. [n. 7]), pp. 68f. and pp. 77f.

³⁷ Sup. cit. [n. 7], p. 76. Brize also supposes (pp. 66ff. and 100) that Stesichorus has ‘transferred’ a capacity for metamophosis from Homer's Proteus (Od. 4.435ff.) to Nereus. This is an unnecessary complication: both Nereus and Proteus fall within the wider category of creatures (like Thetis et al.) whose connection with that changeable element the sea explains their predilection for metamorphosis. See Frazer's Loeb Apollodorus ii.67f. n. 6 and Appendix 10 (pp. 386ff.), M. Ninck, Die Bedeutung des Wassers im Kult und Leben der Allen (Philol. Suppl. 14 [1921, repr. 1960], pp. 138ff. And appropriately prophetic powers are often attributed to gods of the sea (cf. West on Hes. Th. 233, Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace Odes 1.15.5).

³⁸ On the general phenomenon of ‘Meergreise’ see e.g.Lesky, , Thalatta. Der Weg der Griechen zum Meer (Vienna, 1947), pp. 107ffGoogle Scholar. Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), p. 185 n. 13, Brize (sup. cit. [n. 7]), pp. 67f. Heracles' wrestling with the Old Man of the Sea is a popular subject in art. See, apart from the remarks of Brize and Glynn [sup. cit. n. 7],Ahlberg-Cornell, G., Herakles and the Sea-Monster in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting (Stockholm, 1984)Google Scholar. In this context one should also, perhaps, cite the ferryman Charon, on whom see (in addition to the studies mentioned above n. 22) C. Sourvinou-Inwood in LIMC s.v. (III. 1.21 Off.), since he too is a figure connected with water that acts as a barrier to the land of the dead; he too is generally conceived as an old man (Sourvinou-Inwood, p. 221; cf. Richardson (sup. cit. [n. 15]), pp. 83ff.); an d he to o comes into conflict with Heracles ( Seneca, , Here. Fur. 769ff.Google Scholar,Verg, . Aen. 6.392Google Scholar and Servius ad loc; cf.Lloyd-Jones, , Maia 19 (1967), 222)Google Scholar.

³⁹ Sup. cit. [n. 16], pp. 58ff. In a sense, the encounter and struggle with the Old Man of the Sea represents an anticipation (in a minor key) of the climactic encounter with the monster symbolising death. This too is a common pattern of folk-tale: one thinks, for instance, of Beowulf s encounter with Grendel in the upper world and then with Grendel's more formidable mother in her underground cave. (For the likelihood that Beowulf too was originally a story of triumph over death, with Beowulf occupying the shaman's role (cf. above n. 12), see, for instance,Shippey, T. A., Notes & Queries 214 (1969), 11Google Scholar. On the poem's particular susceptibility to Proppian analysis see Shippey, pp. 3ff.; cf.Ostheeren, K. in Enzyklopädie des Märchens s.v. ‘Beowulf’ (2.123ff.)Google Scholar.) For other instances of this pattern of climax, the second encounter being more formidable and on the creature's own ground, see Fontenrose (sup. cit. [n. 13]), pp. 525ff. Thor's visit to Utgard (considered below pp. 285f.) provides a further instance. For the (related) general tendency of the ‘villain’ figure to appear twice, on two separate occasions, in a folk-tale quest see Propp (sup. cit. [n. 8]), pp. 84f. etc.

⁴⁰ Sup. cit. (n. 29), pp. 106ff. = pp. 668ff.

⁴¹ The best up-to-date edition of the former is to be found inSnorri Sturluson Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. Faulkes, Anthony (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar. The passage that concerns us begins at section 44 of Gylfaginning or Gylfi's Deception (pp. 36ff. of this edition). There is an English translation in the Everyman Classics series (1987) by Faulkes himself (pp. 37ff.). The corresponding voyage of ‘Thorkill’ in Saxo Grammaticus' Historiae Danicae (written at the end of the twelfth century A.d. and published in 1514) 8.164f. (cf.Page, , Folktales in Homer's Odyssey [Harvard, 1973], pp. 82f. and p. 126 n. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for an English translation of Saxo's text see P. Fisher (London, 1979)) represents a rationalising and Christianising treatment of the tale (for its relationship to Snorri's narrative seeRooth, A. B., Loki in Scandinavian Mythology [Lund, 1961], pp. 81f. (cf. pp. 64f.)Google Scholar) which makes it perfectly clear and explicit that the land of Utgardloki is identical with Hell. For a bibliography of general studies of the story see Rooth as cited above pp. 80f. It is interesting for our viewpoint that Saxo's narrative includes a cattleraid (cf. Page as cited above pp. 82f.).

⁴² Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 29]), p. 109 = pp. 669f. reasonably interprets this detail as a vestige of the motif of the superlatively endowed helpers who accompany and aid the hero on his quest (in Greek myth one thinks at once of the Argonauts, though cf. de Vries (sup. cit. [n. 29], pp. 96f.)).

⁴³ The detail of Roskwa is again interpreted by Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 29]), p. 110 = p. 670 as a possible vestige, this time of the princess or maiden whom the hero often brings back as prize from his quest (including the quest to the Otherworld): see below n. 68.

⁴⁴ The entrance to the Otherworld is frequently said to be narrow and difficult of access. See e.g. de Vries (sup. cit. [n. 29]), p. 96 (‘Der Eingang zur Unterwelt ist… ein enger Durchgang, den man nur in grösstes Eile durchschreiten kann’) citing several examples including the Symplegades within the Argonautic tale (see above n. 29);Wagenvoort, H., Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion (Leiden, 1956), pp. 110ffGoogle Scholar. on the Orci fauces as implying a narrow, crevice-like entry to Hell; and Hes. Th.. 727 with West's note ad loc. See in general Stith Thompson (sup. cit. [n. 17]), F 150ff. on various difficult or dangerous entrances to the Otherworld.

⁴⁵ Thus the episode in question constitutes a sort of travesty of the hero's encounter with a serpent symbolising death as the climax of his visit to the Otherworld (see above n. 29). One may note in passing that an Attic red-figure cup by the painter Euphronius and dating from the end of the sixth century (Munich 2620: ARV ² 16f. and 1619 (17): Brize (sup. cit. [n. 7], Plate 4.2)) depicting Heracles' encounter with Geryon, gives the latter's dog Orthus a snake's tail as well as two heads.

⁴⁶ It is commonly stressed in accounts of visits to the Otherworld that once the mortal visitor has left he can never return or find his way back. See, e.g.,Chambers, E. K., Arthur of Britain ² (Cambridge, 1964), pp. 221ffGoogle Scholar. on the instances of the motif provided by the idea that King Arthur lies hidden in a cave which, once visited, ‘ca n never be found again’ (p. 223).

⁴⁷ See, for instance, Fontenrose (sup. cit. [n. 13]), General Index s.v. ‘Thor, combats with dragons and monsters’.

⁴⁸ And the way in which he stows away the company's provisions so that they are inaccessible is reasonably interpreted (by Meuli, sup. cit. [n. 29], p. 109 = p. 670) as a vestige of the motif whereby the demon with knowledge of the route contaminates the food of the hero's comrades (see above n. 34).

⁴⁹ The fact that this further elaboration of the story conforms with Propp's scheme (above n. 8) of the heroic quest is observed by Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 8]): ‘even the repetition that the hero loses his prey an d must endeavour a second time to get an d keep it is in Propp's pattern (8-15 bis)’.

⁵⁰ Usener (Jhb. für Philol. 139 [1889], 369 = Kt. Schr. 1.330) argued from the Geryoneis' mention of Pallantium (S 85) that Evander was depicted in the poem as entertaining Heracles when he returned through Italy with the cattle (so several late authors such as Paus. 8.43.2, Dion. Hal. Ant. 1.40 etc.). This is most uncertain, and an identification of Pallantium with the Arcadian town of that name (Paus. 5.1.8, 8.43.1 and 3) has seemed preferable to most scholars (Heracles' visit to the centaur Pholus, which we know to have been mentioned in the Geryoneis (S 19), is regularly set in Arcadia). On the whole question of whether Cacus is a relatively late figure hardly known before Vergil, or a much more primeval figure, see Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), p. 86 and p. 181 nn. 6–11; cf.Sutton, D. F., CQ 27 (1977), 391ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. andSmall, J. P., Cacus and Marsyas in Etrusco-Roman Legend (Princeton, 1982), pp. 3ff.Google Scholar, E. Mavleev, LIMC s.v. ‘Cacu’ (III.1.175Q, J. Arce, ib. s.v. ‘Cacus’ (177f.).

⁵¹ The clearest summary of Cacus' associations with the Underworld as they emerge from Vergil's account is in Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 389ff., a treatment that has notably failed to impress itself upon recent commentators on Aeneid 8.

⁵² Cf. above n. 23.

⁵³ Cf. above n. 16.

⁵⁴ Cf. above n. 44.

⁵⁵ Cf. above n. 16, ad fin.

⁵⁶ Sup. cit. (n. 4), p. 45 n. 74.

⁵⁷ For a useful recent survey of the relevant literary and artistic evidence (with bibliography) seeOlmos, R. and Balmaseda, L. J. in LIMC s.v., I.1.558ffGoogle Scholar.Robert, Carl, Gr.Held. 2.512f. and 564fGoogle Scholar. is still crucial.

⁵⁸ Underlying this od d detail is the sort of folk-tale motif represented by the figure of the giant who can only b e killed with his ow n club o r sword (cf. Stith Thompso n (sup. cit. [n. 17]), Z 312.2). Giants often have their lives protected in analogous ways: compare the giant who is immortal so long as he touches the land of his birth (Thompson D 1854), a motif also applied to Alcyoneus (see next note) and more famously to Antaeus, that other adversary (see n. 13 above) of Heracles); the giant who has an external soul; and so forth. Geryon's three bodies obviously constitute an equivalent to this sort of protection. As regards the propriety of a stone for a weapon, we recall that Heracles lobs one at Geryon to knock off one of his helmets in Stesichorus' poem (S15; 13ff.: cf. Page (sup. cit. [n. 1]), p. 151); that the same hero uses stones against Cacus in Aen. 8.250; and that a now lost sixth-century Corinthian cup depicted Heracles in the Underworld as brandishing a stone against Hades (Brommer (sup. cit. [n. 26]), p. 44 ≃ p. 46. The uncertainty there stated as to whether the object is a stone or something else may perhaps be resolved in the light of the evidence adduced in this note): cf.Boardman, , JHS 95 (1975), 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁹ In the Gigantomachy at Apollod. 1.6.1 the two mightiest giants are said to be Porphyrion and Alcyoneus: Ἀλκυονεὺc ὂc δὴ καὶ ἀθάνατοc ἦν ἐν ἦιπερ ἐγεννήθη γῆι μαχόμνοc. οὖτοc δὲ καὶ τὰc Ἡλίου βόαc ἐξ Ἐρυθείαc ἢλαcε Robert (sup. cit. [n. 57]), p. 513 n. 1 believes that ἐξ Ἐρυθείαc ‘auf einer Kontamination mit der jüngeren Sagenform beruht’.Vian, F., La Guerre des Géants (Paris, 1952), p. 219 n. 2Google Scholar prefers to supplement τὰc Ἡλίου βόαc <τὰc> ἐξ Ἐρυθείαc to bring the passage into line with the tradition alluded to in Σ Pind. Nem.

⁶⁰ See Olmos and Balmaseda (sup. cit. [n. 57]), p. 563. Killing a sleeping giant may seem a distinetly unheroic ploy, but on e recalls that in the Geryoneis Heracles deliberates whether to attack his adversary openly or by stealth (S 15 i 5ff., esp. 8: λάθραι πολεμε[ῖν) and proceeds, in fact, to take him unawares (see above n. 58). The Old Man of the Sea requires similar handling: Menelaus had to attack Proteus while he is napping (Od. 4.414) and for the mastering of Thetis in similar circumstances cf. Ov. Met. 11.238ff.

⁶¹ See Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), p. 153.

⁶² Schweitzer, sup. cit. (n. 61). For this word and other similar epithets euphemistically applied to Hades see Richardson on H.H.Dem. 9 (πολυδέκτηc) cf. Usener, Kl. Schr. 3.440ff.

⁶³ The underlying implication, of course, is that the daughter is a reward for the cattle. See below n. 68, and cf.Meuli, , Die Antike 17 (1941), 205Google Scholar = Ges. Schr. ii.902.

⁶⁴ The odd mode of death by rebound inevitably reminds one of the manner of Alcyoneus' death (above n. 58). The result in each case is that the hero (Heracles or his father) is not technically the killer.

⁶⁵ Compare Electryone, daughter of Helios (Diod. Sic. 5.56.5, 27 Pind. Σ 7.24 g [1.204 Drachmann]) on whom cf.Wilamowitz, , Hermes 14 (1879), 457ffGoogle Scholar. = Kl. Schr. 5² 1ff. In view of the considerations here adduced, Wilamowitz (p. 458 = p. 2) may be wrong to rank Electryon among those shadowy mythical persons whose only function is to beget and die (‘zu zeugen und zu sterben’).

⁶⁶ See Schweitzer, sup. cit. (n. 61), Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), p. 95 and p. 185 nn. 8–9. In the epic Telegony, according to Proclus' summary (EGF p. 72), Odysseus sailed to Elis to examine the byres of Augeas (τὰ βουκόλια: seeSeveryns, A., AC 31 (1962), 15ff.)Google Scholar, was entertained by Polyxenus, and presented with a wine bowl upon which (see Severyns, sup. cit. pp. 19ff.) was shown the story of Trophonius and Agamedes and Augeas. Polyxenus (on whose name see above n. 62) is grand-son of Augeas and here too (as in the Geryon tale) we may be dealing with cattle that have associations both with the Sun and Death. For Odysseus as hero of a Jenseitsfahrt both in his general wanderings and in the more particular episode of his journey to the land of the Thesprotians (context for his visit to Polyxenus) see Meuli (sup. cit. [n. 11]), pp. 167f. = pp. 868f. For his shamanistic resemblances to Beowulf (cf. n. 39) see, e.g.,Hatto, A. T., Essays on Medieval German and other Poetry (Cambridge, 1980), p. 123Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ See above n. 27.

⁶⁸ Cf. Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), p. 153. The motif of the king's daughter, whose hand is won by the questing hero, survives in the person of Medea within the Argonauts' legend, an d may even be vestigially present in the journey of Thor to Utgard (see above n. 43). The otherwise incomprehensible statement ap. ps.-Aristotle περὶ θαυμ. 133 that Erytheia was Heracles' bride, is perhaps to be explained in the same way, asWeicker, , RE s.v. ‘Geryoneus’ (71 (1912)), 1289.63ffGoogle Scholar. supposed. For the tendency of folk-tale quests to end with the hero's marriage cf. Prop p (sup. cit. [n. 8]), pp. 63f, 92 and (Alan Dundes' introductory remarks) p. xiii. περὶ θαυμ 133 = Preger, Inscr. Gr. Metr. 95 (cf.Huxley, , GRBS 8 (1967), 88ff.)Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Burkert, sup. cit. [n. 7], p. 97.

⁷⁰ Within Greece particularly associated with the West Peloponnese which is where Geryon may originally have been located (cf. Schweitzer (sup. cit. [n. 10]), pp. 153ff. etc.). Popular in ancient Greece and indeed the whole world over from earliest times. For a very useful and wide-ranging survey seeHatto's, A. T. Foreword to Morris, H. F., The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole (Oxford, 1964), pp. vffGoogle Scholar. (the book deals with a Ugandan tribe's literature). See furtherKailaspathy, K., Tamil Heroic Poetry (Oxford, 1968), p. 194Google Scholar and Subject Index s.v. ‘Cattle-stealing’,Lincoln, B., ‘The Indo-European Cattle-Raiding Myth’, History of Religions 16 (1976), 42ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. etc.

⁷¹ Eusebius, , hist, eccles. 1.13.20 (some MSS. have ἀνήγειρεν for ἀνήγαγεν which does not materially affect the issue at stake). Fo r similar phrases used of Christ's achievement by Christian writers see Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 103 n. 1Google Scholar.

⁷² For this sort of imagery used of Christ's journey to Hell see Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), pp. 146ff., 277 and p. 354 n. 5. In the last of these passages the phrase Ἃιδου cκυλευομένου in the Testament of Levi 4.1 (cf.Charles, R. H., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English 2 (Oxford, 1913), p. 307Google Scholar;Charlesworth, , The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1 (London, 1983), p. 789Google Scholar (who gets the phrase wrong)) is convincingly defended and explained along these lines and with reference toSen, . Here. Fur. 833Google Scholar where the phrase tertiae regem spoliare sortis is used of Heracles' descent into the Underworld.

⁷³ See Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), passim, esp. Personen-und Sachregister s.v. ‘Descensus Motive… Befreiung der Gefangenen’.

⁷⁴ For bibliography see Kroll (sup. cit. [n. 14]), p. 445 n. 1, who represents the more hostile attitude of classicists to the equation. More recent references in Burkert (sup. cit. [n. 7]), p. 186 n. 21. Add, e.g.Rose, H. J., Harvard Theological Review 31 (1938), 113ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar,Knox, W. L., ib. 41 (1948), 229ff.Google Scholar,Simon, M., Hercule et le Christianisme (Paris, 1955)Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ To cite but one detail, the mothers of both Christ and Heracles are miraculously spirited away from the tomb after their death (Alcmena by Hermes: cf. Ant. Lib. Met. 33, Paus. 9.16.7;Herter, H., Rh. Mus. 119 (1976), 213 n. 74)Google Scholar. Cf. Rose (sup. cit. [n. 74]), pp. 124f.

⁷⁶ See above n. 27.

⁷⁷ Unless Eur. Her. 649f. alludes to it (see, e.g., Bond ad loc).

⁷⁸ See my article‘The Ancient Greeks on Why Mankind does not Live Forever’, Mus. Helv. 44 (1987), 65ffGoogle Scholar.